Although I was very confused and felt a little embarrassed with how technology illiterate I am, I did think that this class was very beneficial. It was a good introduction on how to use SmartBoard, but if I am going to use this in my classroom, I am going to have to go through much more training and practice using SmartBoard much more in order to understand it. It is amazing how many different details go into a simple activity, lesson or game. You have to understand how to incorporate color, fonts, themes, pictures, animations, sounds, and different ways to interact the students with the lesson or activity that you are presenting. I thought the coolest part of SmartBoard, was being able to record what you are writing on the board, and then either save it for a student who is absent, or include it in a slide, so the whole class can see it while you are giving the presentation.
Smartboard is definitely beneficial and brings much excitement and engagement into the class room, however........ I hate to say it, but even with all the training in the world, I do not think that I will ever fully understand how to use SmartBoard and all its applications.
There are certainly a lot of bells and whistles when it comes to SMARTboard, but I do believe it is a technology worth mastering. The ability to record demonstrations in real time is great for students who either missed class, or missed your point entirely.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your Podcast you created with Matt. It was both educational and entertaining, especially the PEMDAS rap at the end. Do you think a video podcast would be more effective in demonstrating the order of operations, or does an audio version work just fine and dandy?
A video podcast would certainly be more effective, Greg. Math at it's heart is a visual subject. Graphs need to be seen in order to understand relationships. It's much harder to do math without a pen and pad and so it's much harder to even imagine math without something to look at. I've used video demonstrations to help me with some calculus before and they've been great. However, when all you have is a voice to listen to, at best you can only teach low level information in maths.
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